One of the main drawbacks of working from home is finding a way to separate work from your home life. If you have a spare bedroom or a room that you can dedicate to work, you will be able to shut the door behind you so that you are not disturbed, and at the end of the day you can leave work and resume family life.
How many distractions are too many?
There will be distractions wherever you work, and the ability to deal with them effectively comes with experience, but working at home introduces potential distractions that are not present anywhere else. You need a strong will to ignore piles of washing up or laundry that needs attention, and the danger is that these distractions become procrastinations that enable you to avoid a particularly boring or tricky piece of work. Strong focus is required to get back on track and carry on working.
If you have small children running around the house it can be impossible to work efficiently, and no matter how much you love them, their sudden appearance in your home office when you are with a client is not the best advert for your business. Older children bring different challenges to your world. Loud music and their louder friends can disturb concentration so much that you may start to reminisce nostalgically about your former corporate life.
So after the initial euphoria of working from home has worn off, what is the answer to the practical problems that stand in the way of actually getting the job done?
A home office in your garden!
There is a huge choice of garden office buildings on the market, which offer a vital dividing line between work and home life. You can choose a strong, attractive structure that will blend in with your garden, and offer you:
- A separate professional work space all year round
- Energy-efficient heating and double-layer insulation, enabling a work space that is warm in winter and cool in summer
- An appropriate level of security for your valuable office equipment
- Storage for all business documentation
For many, this is the ideal solution to the unique problems of working from home, and as plumbing can also be installed in a garden office, it could even be used as an occasional guest room.
There are many professional companies able to advise on whether planning permission will be needed for your garden office, and putting together the structure should be straightforward. Having access to a working space that is separate from your home can mean the difference between enjoying the process of running a successful business, and wishing you had never taken the leap into self-employment in the first place.
This article has been written by online author David Hamer. If you live in north-east Scotland, David is able to recommend the best Aberdeen joiners in that area, so if you are thinking of putting together a garden office or other wooden construction, you will find a wide choice of professional Aberdeen joiners from which to choose.
